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Who Do You Think You Are? is inscribed in a cultural and literary context where the colonial heritage uncomfortably straddles two major cultural moments: modernism in the 1950s, and, in the 1960s and 70s, the counter-culture that originated in the United States. Considering "The Beggar Maid" and "Mischief " as pivotal sections of the narrative, this article will examine how this double cultural encounter is a source of confusion and irony for Rose, the central character. This is reflected in the way a number of iconic cultural objects are perceived, and turned inside out.
inside out: with the inner surface turned out; turn inside out: turn the inner side outwards; colloq. cause confusion or a mess in. (Shorter Oxford English Dictionary)
Who Do You Think You Are? (1978), Alice Munro's fourth collection of short stories, makes up a cycle, as Rose is followed through key episodes of her life in the ten connected stories. Although the stories can be read individually, they acquire a different dynamic and function from the fact that they are linked and make up a consistent narrative.1 In the overall structure of the cycle, "The Beggar Maid" and "Mischief " are both central to the sequence and longer than the other stories.2 They can also be seen as the core of the collection in the sense that aesthetic and cultural questions are treated more openly in these stories, particularly the clash between colonial culture and modernism in the title story, and the effect of the U.S. counterculture, in its various forms, in "Mischief."3 Over the course of the cycle, the reader follows Rose, an artistically inclined child who eventually becomes an actress, from girlhood into middle age, from the Depression of her childhood into the cultural and sexual Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, and her personal as well as aesthetic identity is subject to those times of change, as the 20th century brings forth its profound transformations. Rose observes and experiences the impact of modern times on Canadian aesthetics and culture in general; she witnesses first-hand the sort of cultural resistance, shifts, and redefinitions this process entails, with an overall move from a Victorian culture inherited in colonial times to a modern, and then postmodern one. This process is...